


connection to our forefathers

by TheWrongKindOfPC



Series: pretty fuckin' happy [2]
Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Established Relationship, Kid Fic, Language Acquisition, M/M, Past Child Abuse, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-21
Updated: 2015-06-21
Packaged: 2018-04-05 12:31:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,485
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4179966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheWrongKindOfPC/pseuds/TheWrongKindOfPC
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>“As a general thing, we’re hoping you get your dad’s sleeping patterns,” Ronan tells the now-quiet infant in the stroller as she rolls down to his end of the couch again. “He can sleep through anything, which would be a really convenient quality for you to have, little caterpillar-face. What we don’t want you to inherit,” Ronan says, cutting his gaze up and over to Adam’s face, “Is his martyrdom boner."</em>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Adam and Ronan and adventures in parenting!</p>
            </blockquote>





	connection to our forefathers

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, more baby fic. Jeez, it's like I don't even know who I am anymore. Again, the title is from the Squalloscope song "disneyland," which I very much recommend.
> 
> I know there's a tumblr post floating around about Ronan playing video games while babysitting that definitely inspired that one scene, but I can't find it right now. To the person who wrote it: I owe you one. If you read this, we should totally chat, we clearly have some similar ideas in life.

Ronan came to terms a long time ago with the fact that he probably met the love of his life when he was sixteen. He’s also come to terms with the fact that he occasionally thinks in phrases as stupid as ‘love of his life.’ Niall Lynch was a liar and a thief, he played favorites with his children and was an almost chronically absent father, but he was also a poet and a dreamer, and something about the way words could seem to speak through him never left Ronan, and never got tainted by the things Ronan found out or realized about him later.

Ronan thinks he hasn’t thought about his father so much in years before he set himself on the path to becoming one.

But he accepted, not long after that first hurried kiss and, honestly, not long before that first breakup, that Adam was probably it for him, and he hasn’t really wavered since—even when they split up, the largest part of Ronan always sort of knew he’d be drawn back, and the smaller, more fearful part knew that if even if he wasn’t, it wouldn’t take away how he felt. Then there’s friendship, and the fact that while, in the past few years, he’s met people he’s liked, and who he thinks he’ll continue to know in the future, he’s reasonably certain he’s not about to meet anyone who’ll be able to fill Gansey or Noah or Blue’s place, and Ronan has been just a little afraid, these last few months, that all of these things meant his heart was full, that he doesn’t have enough space to really love somebody new.

There’s nothing that can prepare him for the rush of feeling that takes him over when he first meets Persephone.

He follows Adam into Abby’s hospital room and watches while Abby passes Adam the swaddled bundle of tiny-person-Ronan-can’t-quite-see-yet, and the feeling that takes him watching Adam’s hesitant wonder as he looks down at the baby is still all about _Adam_ , but when Adam beckons Ronan over with a soft, “Get your ass over here, Lynch,” and carefully transfers her sleeping body into Ronan’s arms, that shifts. Suddenly, the way Ronan can't quite breathe has less to do with Adam and the way, Ronan can see in his peripheral vision, his hands are shaking a little, and everything to do with the sleeping face that already looks like it’s creased with worry lines, cradled against his chest.

…

When Adam thinks of the first hours and days of Persephone’s life in the years to come, he remembers them in flashes and snapshots—Ronan’s affronted look the first time the nurse at the hospital called Persephone a ‘little angel,’ and his bloody-minded determination to call her the least cutesy nicknames he could think of afterward; Adam’s own terror at putting her in the car to take her home later; her first piercing cry, and his dual certainty, first that this was something totally normal, and second, that it had to mean that something was terribly wrong; a three-and-a-half-minute too long argument with Ronan about the temperature of the formula, and also what side of the wrist they should be testing the temperature with, anyway, while Persephone wailed in the background.

That first conversation with Gansey after bringing Persephone home is one for the books, if only because he opens it with, “So how’s Percy doing at home, then?”

“ _No_ ,” Adam hisses, venomous, ignoring Ronan’s questioning look over at his tone, “I don’t care that Blue lets you get away with it, there is no way in hell you’re renaming our daughter. And definitely not anything as WASP-ey as _Percy_ , Jesus.”

Ronan laughs. Adam continues to ignore him. Gansey says, “It’s a nickname, you can’t honestly expect that everyone’s just going to go around calling this little girl ‘Persephone.’ You didn’t, did you?”

Adam, who, in fact, had, says, “It worked for Persephone,” and it takes saying it for him to see one of the problems with that.

“Yes,” Gansey says, like he can see Adam’s moment of realization, which, knowing Gansey, he probably can, “Like that. Plus, we don't know that anyone called her that as a child, I have a feeling it may have been one of those adopted-later-in-life kind of names.”

Adam isn't sure that part is true—he can’t picture Persephone, either of them, really, being named anything else—but he hasn’t got anything to refute it with. “Well, it’s still not going to be Percy,” he says instead. A man has got to have principles, this is a hill Adam is willing to die on.

“Sure,” Gansey agrees breezily and insincerely. Adam grinds his teeth.

…

Going back to school on Monday feels impossible and wrong, but somehow, Adam does it. He wakes up at the alarm he set for a half an hour before his usual time, and he goes to Persephone— _Seph_ , he thinks sluggishly. _That could be a good nickname_ , and then, more determinedly, _better than Percy, anyway_ —and picks her up to soothe her back to quiet after the alarm has woken her up.

That takes longer than Adam feels like it should—long enough that he only gets around to stopping when Ronan sits up and holds out his arms for her. “Come on, you’re going to be late,” he says, voice thick and low and sleep-rough, and this is _not_ how Adam meant to do this, it feels wrong, he’s known since they first talked about it that Ronan would be the one who was around for most of the baby’s early life, but Adam had wanted to be able to be really _present_ when he was home, but here he is—Adam carefully passes her to Ronan and rubs the sleep-grit from his own eyes. He really is going to be late if he’s not careful, and it’s not going to be pretty.

“Hey there, little possum-nose,” Ronan coos to the baby. Adam thinks that one is a direct retaliation against the nurse who said she had ‘angel eyes,’ and he snorts a laugh.

Adam turns to the closet and starts digging through for something formal enough to camouflage the fact that he’s exhausted, and buttoned up enough that he shouldn’t feel comfortable enough to fall asleep in it in class. 

“I’m not working this week, so I should be back around three,” Adam tells Ronan, who nods.

“Hurry home, snookums—Lynch Junior here and I’ll be waiting for you.”

“Shitbag,” Adam says, grinning, and punches Ronan lightly on the shoulder of the arm not currently cradling an infant.

…

When Adam gets home, he opens the door to the muffled, low-volume, dulcet tones of machine guns, and when he walks into the living room, he finds Ronan on the couch with a videogame controller in one hand and the baby held against his body with the other.

“First-person-shooter training starting young?” Adam asks, leaning against the doorway and peering into the room.

“One sec,” Ronan grunts, and then there is an even more impressive burst or machine gun fire, and the music that signals the end of the level. Then he looks up at Adam and smiles toothily. “What, not impressed with my housewifery?”

Adam shakes his head, not in agreement or disagreement, but just sort of in the wonder that comes with seeing the shit Ronan comes up with. He unbuttons the top three buttons of his shirt and shambles over to the couch, saying, “I’m amazed she can sleep through that.”

“No, that’s the beauty,” Ronan says, reaching out to catch his fingers in the place where Adam’s shirt is unbuttoned and gaping and reeling him in for a quick, hard kiss.

Adam pulls back to collapse down onto the couch beside him, sticking out his tongue to tease the spot where Ronan’s sharp teeth sank into his lower lip. “What’s the beauty?” he asks, reaching out to run his fingers softly over the crown of Persephone’s fuzzy head.

“Well she was crying like hell,” Ronan says, “and I couldn’t figure out what to do, she wasn’t hungry, didn’t need a diaper change, wouldn’t sleep or anything, and I just couldn’t figure it out, so I googled that shit, and the internet said that it might actually be _too quiet_ for her out here, after hearing the, you know, gurgle of Abby’s body all the time in the womb. That and that she might just want to be close to us. So I thought, what the fuck, I’ll pick her up and put on something for white noise, see what happens. It was this,” Ronan gestures at the screen, “Or Marijuana Deathsquad’s new EP, and they don’t really seem like her style,” as he peers down at the baby.

“And war zones are?” Adam has to ask.

“Hey, it worked, asshole,” Ronan tells him.

“Probably because Abby sent most of her pregnancy in the Green Zone,” Adam agrees, nodding seriously. “Hey, I’m going to go make a sandwich, or something, you want anything?”

…

Seph has her first cold, which apparently means it’s normal that she’s been inconsolable for three hours straight before Adam had the brilliant idea to stick her in the stroller and start to push it back and forth. The advice nurse on the phone had said it was normal, anyway, before Ronan had torn into a profanity-laced diatribe about how she was useless, and the woman had asked him not to call back before hanging up the phone.

Adam feels like he should disapprove—after all, the woman was just doing her job, and anyway, she was probably right, Seph really is probably fine. Adam _gets_ it, though—there’s something so awful about the fact of a tiny baby feeling sick and sad and not knowing why, with no context for the way her little body isn't working the way she’s used to, and Adam and Ronan have no way to explain it to her or reassure her.

Also, it’s _late_ , and even years of habitual insomnia haven't totally cured Ronan of his need for sleep entirely, and Adam worked a six hour shift at the garage after class today, and _shit_ , he has class again in the morning, and now, as they sit with their backs to opposite arms of the couch, pushing Seph’s stroller back and forth between them with their feet, Adam feels the kind of tired where it seems like his bones are fusing with the couch cushions.

“You should get some sleep, man,” Ronan says like he’s reading Adam’s mind, and nudges Adam’s knee with the big toe of the foot he has stretched out across the couch. “I got this.”

Adam barely has the energy for his customary snorting chuckle over Ronan’ insistence on calling him ‘man’ in the same tone that some guys say ‘babe,’ and his inability to properly mock that kind of ridiculousness, he thinks, probably proves Ronan’s point for him. Still, he can’t quite bring himself to want to head back to their bedroom alone, knowing that Ronan will probably stay out here rolling the stroller back and forth for a while yet before Seph falls into any kind of decent sleep, and that Ronan will probably fall asleep on the couch himself after that. Besides, Adam feels like he’s almost out the other side of exhaustion—he feels warm and heavy and buzzing with lack of energy, and he’s enjoying the sight of Ronan’s face across from him on the couch, eyes shadowed in the dim room, smiling slightly, the warmth of Ronan’s foot against his leg. He knows from experience that this kind of tiredness will feel like shit later, sure, but right now he’s happy enough to stay where he is.

“I’m alright,” Adam says, and then it’s Ronan’s turn to snort.

“As a general thing, we’re hoping you get your dad’s sleeping patterns,” Ronan tells the now-quiet infant in the stroller as she rolls down to his end of the couch again. “He can sleep through anything, which would be a really convenient quality for you to have, little caterpillar-face. What we don’t want you to inherit,” Ronan says, cutting his gaze up and over to Adam’s face, “Is his martyrdom boner—if anything in the world can, it’s going to be the thing that kills him one day.”

Adam, who has heard it all before, reaches out with his foot to brace the stroller and keep the pace slow and even as Ronan gives it a gentle shove back in his direction. Instead of addressing most of the things Ronan said, he latches onto one of the words around the edges of the sentiment, something he’s been thinking about for a while.

“Hey, so what’s she going to call you, then?”

Ronan squints at him. “What?”

“If you’re calling me ‘dad’ to her, you know,” Adam refuses to get defensive about this, he won’t do it no matter how many faces Ronan makes that say Adam is being ridiculous, it is a totally a reasonable question. “ ‘Hey, these are my parents, my dad and—?’ ”

“I don’t know, asshole, whatever the fuck she _wants_ ,” Ronan snaps loudly enough that Seph whimpers. Ronan glares at Adam like it’s his fault, and leans over to shush her with a careful hand, the other still slowly pushing the stroller back and forth.

When she quiets again, Adam says, “I didn’t mean it like _that_.” He’s not sure how Ronan thinks he meant it, but whatever he thinks, Adam is pretty sure it wasn’t that. “I just meant—‘dad and …daddy?’ ‘Father?’ ‘Pops?’” By the end of the short list, Ronan is laughing, lack of sleep pushing till he’s even more mercurial than usual.

“Shit, anything but _that_ ,” Ronan protests, “What about just ‘Ronan?’ It’s what you’ll be calling me anyway, so it’ll probably be what she learns.”

“I could call you whatever we decided on instead, so she’d learn that,” Adam says. He knows he’s opening himself up to a world of bad jokes, but somehow this feels important enough to try.

Sure enough, Ronan doesn’t disappoint. “Hey, you can call me ‘daddy,’ if you want man, but I would have thought it’d have come up earlier on in the relationship.”

“We could come up with something really fucking cutesy for you,” Adam threatens. “It’ll be all I ever call you where she can hear, she’ll never know there’s anything weird about it, don’t think I won’t do it.”

“I don’t know,” Ronan admits. “I mean, can’t we just both be ‘dad?’ kids figure out that’s not their father’s name at some point, anyway. She’s a smart kid, she’ll deal with it.”

“Oh she is, is she?” Adam asks, nudging Ronan’s hip with his toe. “She prove that by drooling on you?”

“Hey, kid’s got taste,” Ronan says. “Not just anybody’s smart enough to go around drooling on _me_.”

…

“Hey,” Ronan says over dinner, about two months after Seph’s birth, “You’ve got that three day weekend coming up, right? Do you think you could get it off work?”

“Er,” said Adam, who’d been hoping to make a little extra cash and build a little extra good will with his manager after the weeks he’d taken off and dropped in hours just after she was born by taking a closing shift on the extra day, “I’m not sure. Why?”

“I was talking to mom the other day,” Ronan says, staring determinedly down at his plate. “She invited us down, she wants to meet Seph.”

It’s such a normal, _familial_ sentiment, it catches Adam off-guard. Adam knows Ronan’s family, has spent time with all of them, but he’s never really thought of them as a family _unit_ before, except for in those occasional moments at the Barns where he tries to imagine what it must have been like growing up there. _This_ , though—Aurora wanting to meet her _grandchild_ , her grandchild who is _Adam’s daughter_ makes him feel suddenly very connected to her, to _them_ and at the same time totally alien. Adam repeats, “I’m not sure, but I’ll try.” He clears his throat a little, and tries to sound matter-of-fact about saying, “You’re right, of course she should meet your family.”

“Our family,” Ronan corrects, tone low and dark. He’s looking at Adam, not Seph, when he says it, too.

It feels kind of wrong to agree, but Adam thinks it would feel weirder to try to argue, so he just says, “Yeah, right, of course,” and takes his own turn to look down at his hands and avoid Ronan’s eyes. “I’ll just—I’m gonna call Esther, see if she can take my Saturday shift.”

…

“Wonderful,” Aurora says, when Ronan calls to tell her when they’ll be coming down. But then she says, “I already have Declan coming for dinner Friday night, so we can both meet her together. I’ll see if Mathew can make it. All of my boys under one roof with me again, I can’t remember the last time that happened!”

Ronan remembers. It was last Christmas, and Ronan remembers because it was disastrous enough that he thinks both he and Declan have been making a point to be sure it doesn’t happen again—Ronan is pretty sure they’ll never be quite done fighting, but at least they’ve both matured enough to share the sense that their mother and Matthew shouldn’t have to witness it.

It was bad enough when it was just Matthew, but now that their mother is back, the fury they’ve been unleashing on each other over the last few years feels even more kind of melodramatic and stupid the moment they’re outside of it, although of course in the moment it still feels righteous and cleansing and justified.

The point, though, is that Ronan has been avoiding Declan, and now it looks like he won’t be able to avoid him any longer—there’s no way he can ask Aurora to uninvite him, and there’s no way Ronan can back out of going, either. He doesn’t even want to, he just wishes it could be a Declan-free visit. _Fucking Declan_ , he thinks. Maybe in a different world, Adam’s presence would keep things from getting out of hand, but the Ronan and Adam who actually exist don’t ever really curb each other’s worst behaviors so much as they let them run their course until they’re purged away. Ronan has no doubt that if he and Declan come to blows again, Adam will cover Seph’s eyes, and will only hand her over to Aurora or Matthew and step in to put a stop to things if they start to draw blood.

Fucking _hell_ , Ronan loves him.

“Yeah, mom,” he says. “It’ll be great.”

…

After Adam and Ronan finally managed to fix things so Aurora could leave Cabeswater, Ronan had expected her to go back to the Barns. It had been her home for so long, and Ronan had wanted her to know that, no matter what the will said, it still was, still could be. After all, a will could say anything. Niall had made sure Ronan knew that by making knowing it a trial by fire, with their home as the stakes, what they all could lose if he failed.

She’d only stayed at the Barns a few nights, though, as she’d made arrangements to stay with a friend of hers who lived in Richmond. Ronan only remembered Annie vaguely from his childhood—one of the ex-girlfriends of an ex-member of one of Niall’s ex-bands, but she and Aurora had been close. She’d been around a lot the first few years Ronan had been in school as a child, and after that, she’d moved away.

Ronan had remembered her mostly for how his father had hated her, but Ronan couldn’t remember quite why.

“You could stay,” he’d told her, and he’d been glad that no one else was there to hear—not Adam, who he’d, at the time, only kissed for the first time a few weeks earlier, not Gansey, who had already seen Ronan’s vulnerable spots more times that Ronan thought anyone ever should, not Matthew, who Ronan had still thought he could always be strong for, and certainly not Declan. “I wish you would stay.”

“Oh, sweetheart,” Aurora had said, all sighing, regretful tenderness, and Ronan had _missed_ her. She’d patted the spot on the bed between herself and her suitcase, and when Ronan sat beside her, she’d brought her hand up to touch his cheek. “You’ve grown so much, these past few years, without me. You’re a man now, really.” She’d laughed a little sadly and Ronan had shaken his head, quick and upset.

“You are,” she’d told him, soft and implacable, “But that’s not why I have to go. It’s just why I feel like I can actually do it. This time is a gift,” and she’d smiled, warm but unmoving. “I didn’t exist before your father and I didn't expect to exist after him. You’ve given me a chance, and I appreciate that, Ronan. But that doesn’t mean you get to decide what I do with it.”

The words had knocked all of the air out of him, had fallen on him like an unexpected blow because _of course_ it hadn’t been up to Ronan to choose what she did, but he’d never thought that, given the choice, she might not choose them, and their family. He’d never thought she hadn’t had a choice before.

She’d stared at him, her expression warm and worried and sure, but with a hint of darkness, of panic, in the tightness around her mouth, and he’d realized something even worse: a part of her was afraid of him, because maybe he _could_ make her stay if he wanted her to, and in a corner of her mind, maybe she wasn’t sure he wouldn’t try.

“Of course not,” he’d said, and he’d tried to just sound as sure as she had, rather than terrified. “Can I—Mom. Can I come and see you on school breaks sometimes?” He couldn’t help but ask, but he also couldn’t help but worry, couldn’t help but be afraid she might see the question as another threat.

“Oh, baby, of course,” she’d said then, though, and reached out to pull him down into a hug. “I want you all to come see me, all my boys, as often as you can. I just need to get the hell out of this _house_.”

It was the most emphatic Ronan thought he’d ever heard her. Ronan had hung on, arms tight around her slight, airy frame, and breathed in the light flowery scent of her hair. Someone’s dream, yes, but someone’s dream come alive, and now all she wanted was to have her own life, instead of just being a part of his, and how could Ronan begrudge her that?

He doesn’t say all of this, when Adam offers to drive down with him and then make himself scarce so Ronan can have some time with his family, the same way he and Blue and Gansey had hung around the other side of the clearing when Aurora was still stuck in Cabeswater all those years ago to give Ronan some privacy with her. He does try to explain some of the more important parts, though, about why he says no, and all of the ways it goes beyond the simple fact that Adam, too, has been Ronan’s family for years. Seph’s existence cements that fact, but she didn’t create it.

He tells Adam, “I want you there,” and then, when that’s not enough, “It’s better if you’re there, they think I’m more—you know, more human, with you. Less something that should scare them.”

It’s true, he’s noticed it over the years, and it’s strange, because Adam has a weird kind of power thrumming under his skin as certainly as Ronan does, but something about the way Ronan still can’t quite help but go all stupid and soft-eyed over Adam helps Aurora to relax around him, and makes Matthew beam. It even seems to settle something in Declan, not that Ronan cares, since it gives him something _normal_ to judge and disapprove of and worry over.

“You’re always human,” Adam says fiercely, and Ronan thinks Adam, of all people, who sometimes acts like holding onto his own humanity is _work_ when he gets in too deep with his work for Cabeswater, should know. “They’re not afraid of you,” Adam tells him, and, “You’re not as scary as you think you are, Lynch,” and Ronan knows better than to believe him, because Ronan can remember the flash of fear in his mother’s face like it happened yesterday, like it’s happened a hundred times, but the fact that Adam says it still makes him feel somehow safer.

“You’re going, Parrish,” Ronan says now that he’s more sure Adam won’t argue. “You don’t get to wiggle out of making nice with the in-laws.”

It’s mostly a joke, but a little bit not—Adam always seems a little nervous and on-edge around Aurora, which baffles Ronan, since he can’t imagine anyone in the world more reassuring than his mother.

“I won’t try,” Adam says, rolling his eyes, and then, defensive, “I was just offering.”

…

Declan says, “She looks just like you,” and, “No one would ever mistake her for Ronan’s.”

He doesn’t even sound like he’s trying to be cruel, he just sounds a little sad, subdued. Adam thinks it’s that sad tone more than anything else that sets the fury kindling in his gut. Then he thinks he’d find a reason why any way Declan said it would be the exact wrong way to say it because _it’s the wrong thing to say._

“She _is_ Ronan’s,” Adam hisses, clutching Seph closer and glancing across the room to where Ronan and Aurora are sitting close and talking quietly together on the couch. Adam isn’t sure whether he wants Ronan to notice what’s going on and come to his rescue, or to prolong this miserable conversation for as long as possible so Ronan can have as much time as he can to talk to Aurora uninterrupted.

“No, right, I know,” Declan agrees, smooth and congressional, “Of course.” There’s something surprised in his eyes, though, because, of course, that’s not what he meant, and usually Adam’s the one trying to curb Ronan’s temper when Ronan decides to deliberately misunderstand what Declan means. “I just meant, it’s not like the two of you were planning this, were you? And it’s always going to be obvious—”

This, Adam thinks, is another iteration of Declan trying to be protective, but actually being an asshole. Seph makes a little noise when Adam clutches her closer, and Ronan turns to look their way. Adam smiles as reassuringly as he can manage at Ronan and tells Declan, through clenched teeth, “I didn’t cheat and I don’t regret her,” and then, “Even if we had been planning on it, she’d only look like one or the other of us, I know you know how biology works.” 

Adam thinks his fearsome glare is probably undercut by the remnants of his reassuring smile, and by the fact that he’s bouncing a fussing infant in his arms, so he excuses himself with as much dignity as he can muster, turning towards the kitchen and telling Declan, “I need to go heat up some formula, now.”

…

Adam makes straight for the kitchen when he gets home from work because there’s stuff for pizza in the fridge, and it’s _his turn_ to cook, he knows it. It’s past his turn.

“You’re late,” Ronan observes casually.

“I know, I’m sorry, they had me closing with the new kid and it took way longer than it should have,” Adam says, digging through the drawer for the right knife with one hand, and reaching to start preheating the oven with the other.

“And what the hell do you think you’re doing?” Ronan asks, leaning with one hip cocked against the doorway to the kitchen.

“Dinner,” Adam says, and, “I’m sorry, I know I’m late—”

“Seph’s bedtime is in an hour,” Ronan says, like Adam doesn't already know it. “Go spend some time with her, I can order us in something.”

On the one hand, that sound perfect, it’s what Adam _wants_ , but on the other, “It’s my _turn_ ,” Adam reminds him, furious and exhausted. He tries to put all of his refusal to be the person who doesn’t do his part for his family into his tone because he can’t bear to explain it, and he certainly can’t bear to do it.

“This isn't what I _want_ from you,” Ronan says, though, and something about the way he says it makes Adam feel like he’s heard the things Adam hasn’t said, which is why he can ask, “What is it you do want, then?”

Ronan smiles that knife of a grin, the dangerous one, the one that means he knows he’s won. “Go read our kid _The Paper Bag Princess_ for the fiftieth time today, she doesn't like the way I do the dragon. I’ll order you some lemon chicken, and then after she falls asleep, you’re going to buzz my damn hair again so she won’t be able to pull it. Cool?”

“Cool.” Adam nods. “What weak-ass way have you been reading the dragon, anyway?”

“Everyone’s a critic,” Ronan grumbles. “Now go say hi to the baby, she’s missed you for some fucking reason.”

…

Adam had called Abby up a few weeks after they’d brought Seph home from the hospital, to ask if she wanted to see her. He hadn’t been sure, exactly, what the protocol was, but it had seemed strange, after so many months in her company, not to see her at all, and he couldn’t imagine that she might not be curious about Seph.

Ronan had been a bit more ambivalent about it, had said, “She said she didn’t want to be a parent, man, she might just be trying to get her life back,” but he hadn’t argued when Adam told him he wanted to give her the option.

Abby’s reaction, though, had been a bit more like Ronan’s prediction than like the vague image in Adam’s mind. “It’s not that I don’t want to see her,” Abby had said. “I just think maybe I need some time.”

Six months later, she calls up and asks them to come with her to brunch. “All of you,” she says, when Adam hesitates.

She looks good, more like the woman Adam met nearly two years ago now and less like the exhausted form in the hospital bed on Adam’s first real day as a parent. He thinks there’s nothing about that that should surprise him, but somehow, it still manages to. He feels so transformed by that moment himself, it’s strange to think that it was a step away from who she’s meant to be, and that she’s stepped back in the right direction now.

She sounds good, too, sounds happy, and she laughs when Ronan passes the diaper bag to Adam at Seph’s wail and says, “Your turn, dad.”

Ronan turns towards Abby as Adam gathers Seph and the diaper bag up, and tells her conspiratorially, “It’s almost always Adam’s turn when he’s home because it’s always my turn when he’s not.”

…

The baby book Adam bought the second week after he’d found out Abby was pregnant says that Seph should have started sleeping through the night months ago, but while she’s started sleeping for longer chunks of time, she’s still up at least once or twice a night like clockwork.

“It’s your fault,” Adam accuses, blearily, when she wakes for the third time. “You’ve made her an insomniac before she even knows what the word means.”

“Right,” Ronan agrees, sarcastic, making no move to go to her. “Because I’m the one who provided the genetic material for her. If anything, it’s your fault.”

Adam snorts a laugh. “Not sure I’d have survived infancy if I pulled this shit.” It’s not really a joke, and it’s definitely not funny, but Adam has an exam in the morning, and he’s having a really difficult time convincing his eyelids to part. Still, “Damn, sorry,” and when Ronan doesn’t answer, Adam shoves himself into a sitting position with his hands and rubs at his eyes. “I’ll go get her.”

“Wait, no,” Ronan says, and, “You’ve got that test first thing, right?”

At Adam’s nod, Ronan says, “Just remember that in a couple of weeks, you won't get to have this kind of thing as an excuse, Parrish.” Ronan shoves at Adam’s shoulder till he lies down again, says, “Get some sleep,” and goes.

Of course, as soon as he does, Adam _can’t_. Can’t even convince the eyes he had such a hard time opening to begin with to close again. He lies there, and he waits, and by the time the glowing alarm-clock numbers next to his head tell him Ronan has been gone and Seph’s cries have been silent for twelve minutes, he’s twitchily, restlessly awake.

With a sigh, he swings his legs out of bed and makes for the kitchen to grab a glass of water, but when he walks by the doorway to the living room, he hears, “Now, we’ve got to keep you quiet so your dad can get some rest, right? Big test tomorrow, and I know if he was in here with you, he’d fall asleep on the couch with you,” which, yes, is something Adam probably does at least once a week, “And that’s pretty great, right? I’d like it, too, if I were you, I don’t blame you for wishing it was him, but I can’t do that, you know, monkey-face? I would if I could, but sleeping with me’s not safe. So you’re going to settle for pacing with me a bit, then going back to sleep. Right, kid?”

It’s not something they’ve talked about, Ronan not falling asleep with the baby, but Adam isn’t surprised to learn that it’s a rule he’s made for himself. Ronan hasn’t brought back anything dangerous from his dreams in years, but it also isn’t something he’d risk.

…

“So, is he in the doghouse?” the woman from Adam’s class, Emma, asks Ronan as they stand against the bar after the ceremony and watch Adam schmooze with a former professor, certificate still clutched in his hand, Seph balanced on his hip.

“For what?” Ronan asks. He’s been standing with her because she seemed pretty cool, and because Adam had told him on the drive over that she was probably the member of his study group Ronan would get along with the best, and Ronan was curious why he’d think so.

“Because none of us knew about you, or the little girl,” Emma says, and Ronan thinks Adam probably thought he’d like her because she’s blunt. “Even though we’re probably the best friends he’s got, here.”

Ronan thinks she’s probably the one who’s pissed, if anyone is, but he guesses that’s fair. It used to piss him off, too, the way Adam wouldn’t give much of himself away. It’s been years since then though, and in that vein, “Nah,” Ronan tells her, “We’ve been together since high school, you know. I know what my boy’s like, especially about places like this,” meaning not just tonight’s reception, but the entire law school. “He doesn’t around showing the things that matter when he’s too busy putting on a show.” Ronan likes being part of the things that matter to Adam. Being played close to the vest like that just comes with the territory. There’s something a little protective in it, and something a little possessive.

He doesn’t know why he’s saying so much out loud right now—maybe it’s just that Adam’s playing designated driver tonight, so he’s actually had a couple of shots. Ronan’s teenage self would be ashamed of how wimpy his tolerance has gotten—hell, his readership for his reviews would probably be ashamed, too, he’s definitely been talking a bigger game in his articles than he’s been living lately, since Seph came along. There’s a certain pleasure in that, for sure, but he thinks one of these days, he may have to convince Adam they should hire a babysitter and have a destructive night on the town, just to keep his hand in. 

Ronan thinks it’s probably a different kind of domesticated that the one night out he wants is with the person who’s essentially his spouse, but he thinks if anyone else had an Adam Parrish, more of them would want exactly that. And shit, maybe Ronan is a little smashed, to be thinking like this. It’s clear Ella thinks so, anyway. Or Emma? She’s walking away, anyway—Ronan thinks she may have said something to excuse herself, but he was caught up in his own thoughts enough to not quite remember. Ronan’s phone is buzzing, and it’s Gansey, which means _someone_ should probably answer it, but Ronan is tipsy enough to have regressed back to his original belief that phones are the work of the devil—nearly six years, off and on, of a long-distance relationship had cured him of that up to a _point_ , but when he drinks, it all comes screaming back.

Tomorrow Adam’s the actual graduation, though, which means that Gansey and Blue are driving down _tonight_ —Noah too, if he can make it, but that part’s more of an experiment in whether it’s Henrietta and his grave he’s attached to, or just the ley line in general. They’ll watch the graduation and stay to help Adam and Ronan and Seph move out, and then drive back down to Virginia as a group. It’s a plan months in the making, which means Gansey should probably get an answer if he’s calling them now, but Ronan is damned if he’s going to be the one to do it.

Instead, he makes his way over to where Adam and one of his professors is still talking, only stopping short when he remembers he actually has no interest in talking to another professor again, now that he actually has his own degree. It’s too late, though—Adam is looking his way, and beckons him over when he slows.

“And this is my partner, Ronan Lynch,” he says, smiling as smooth as Declan ever does. “Ronan, Doctor Green.”

“Oh, please call me Dorothy,” the woman says, charming smile fixed in her face, and Ronan _does not_ vomit. Instead he says, “Hi. Sorry to interrupt, but Adam, Gansey called.”

“What did he say?” Adam asks. Like a rookie.

“Oh, I didn’t _answer_ ,” Ronan tells him, smiling what he’s certain is at least a bit of a nasty grin, and there was a time when that would have been almost enough to send them scuffling into mock battle—maybe even a time yesterday, actually, but here, tonight, in their nice suits, Adam just sighs, grins ruefully and glances down at where Ronan’s phone is blinking out a ‘missed call’ message in his hand.

He says to his professor, “I’m sorry, please excuse me, some friends of ours are coming up to help us move, I really need to take their call.” Then he turns to Ronan, shifting so the hip he’s holding Seph’s sleepy body cradled against faces Ronan, and says, “Trade you?”

“C’mere, monkey-fingers,” Ronan says, reaching for her. She fusses a little at the change in position, but settles against him again fairly easily. She’s dressed in one of Blue’s creations, a spiderwebby green thing that looks far too delicate to withstand the attention of an active ten-month-old, but has held up well today to scooting across the floor, hiding out with Ronan in the men’s room during a particularly boring speech, and her insistence on examining the ashtray out in the back alley Ronan had relocated her to when she’d gotten a little loud early on in the evening.

“She’s lovely,” _Dorothy_ says, gesturing to Seph, like that’s not blindingly obvious.

“Yeah,” Ronan agrees, because really, what else is there to do?

“I was telling Adam,” she goes on, “That there really are some wonderful schools in the area. He tells me you’re moving back to Virginia so she can grow up in your childhood home?” The woman stops, waiting for Ronan’s confirmation. He only keeps her hanging for one uncomfortably long moment before he nods, but hearing what she says next makes him wish he’d made her squirm longer.

“That’s such a sweet sentiment,” she says, “But the school system here in the city—well, it’s where I send my children, anyway. And Adam really would have so many more opportunities for work here—not just financially, but the chance to do some really good work.”

Of course he’s charmed her—Adam with his cool eyes and quick mind could charm anyone, Ronan thinks, and the fact that he’s held onto and developed a pretty impeccable set of liberal politics even as he’s moved through increasingly upscale divisions of higher education just completes the picture. He’s every bleeding-heart idealist teacher’s dream. 

“Adam will have opportunities wherever he wants them,” Ronan tells her, though she doesn’t deserve even this much information from him. “He makes them.”

“That’s—” there’s something almost helpless in her tone, Ronan isn't sure which part of that she’s going to begin with objecting to, but he doesn’t have to find out, because that’s when Adam walks back over.

“Hey, are you ready to split?” He asks Ronan. “Gansey and Blue are maybe twenty minutes out, and it looks like Noah’s actually going to make it, so we should go meet them.”

“Right,” Ronan agrees. “Screw Gansey and Blue, but if Noah’s making it, we’ve got to be there to meet ‘em.”

Adam nods. “Yes, that’s exactly what I meant.” He turns to his professor and says, “Dorothy, it’s been a pleasure, I want to thank you for a wonderful experience, the last few years.”

“Of course,” she says, dimpling at him. “I hope you’ll think about what I said,” and Ronan isn't sure whether that’s directed at him or at Adam. He nudges Adam in the side as they’re heading out, says, “She wants you _bad_ ,” and it’s sort of a joke, but sort of not, so he’s not quite surprised when Adam groans, nods and asks, “What did she say to you?”

“Oh, just—” Ronan finds himself floundering a little, “Just that you’ve got such a bright future, that you’d have so many chances if we weren’t moving.” It’s harder, he thinks, to find a way to say that derisively, now that it’s to Adam, and not in his own head.

Adam nods, says, “It’s been a whole _night_ of that crap, you could have come to my rescue sooner, jerk.”

…

For a ghost, Noah is actually a pretty good babysitter, which is good, because even in terms of what’s expected of a ghost, he’s shitty at helping out with moving.

“It’s not that I _can’t_ , it’s that I won’t,” Noah drawls, like that makes it better rather than worse. Ronan smirks at him, which Adam thinks was probably actually the intended effect.

Seph adores him, though, and he won’t pick her up for fear of dematerializing, but she seems fascinated by the change in temperature as she clambers over his legs across the carpet. Her obvious delight is made even better by her total indifference to Gansey.

“She’s just shy,” Adam tries to explain to him as they carry a couple more boxes down to the van. He’s afraid his explanation is undercut by the sound of her bright little giggle as Blue exclaims, “You have to say ‘peek-a-boo,’ Noah!”

“ ‘Peek-a-boo,’ I guess,” Noah murmurs, and Seph chortles harder, and Blue says, “Not _now_ , when you’re peek-a-boo-ing.”

“She hates me,” Gansey sighs, and Adam can’t resist telling him, “It’s because you keep trying to call her Percy.”

“Maybe it’s ‘cause she’s a girl,” Ronan offers around a stack of boxes too large for him to reasonably carry all at once. Adam starts to say something, then remembers how little he wants to start another endless debate, and settles for just hoping there’s nothing breakable inside. “Remember how much Blue hated you starting out?”

“Jane did not _hate_ me,” Gansey says.

“Oh, no, she really did,” Adam assures him cheerfully.

“I think we’ve figured it out,” Ronan says, mock-solemn. “Dick here is just naturally unappealing to women.”

“Oh, because _you’re_ such a ladies’ man, Lynch?”

“Well, the bird he pulled from his dreams and his infant daughter think he’s pretty great,” Adam offers. “That’s a pretty representative sample, right?”

…

“You keep talking like that around her, ‘fuck’s going to be her first word,” Blue says during a lull between spurts of unpacking boxes.

Ronan laughs and runs a hand through Seph’s downy-fine hair where she’s sitting propped on one hand on the floor in front of him, pushing a little wooden car back and forth. “Probably,” he agrees, half to Blue, half to Seph. “That’s my girl. That’s my little Lizard Queen.”

Seph chortles up at him, and Blue finds she’s smiling despite herself.

She’s wrong, about Seph’s first word, though. Adam’s wrong, too—he’s the one who says, “It’ll probably be something totally normal, you know?”

Gansey looks at him with a little incredulity. “She’s your and Ronan’s kid, where are you expecting her to get ‘normal’ from?”

“Abby’s pretty normal,” Adam says, trying not to sound defensive and trying not to feel like he’s throwing Abby under the bus as he says it. She’s not normal in a bad way, or a boring one, she’s just—human.

“Abby…normal?” Gansey says, a laugh in his voice.

“Shut up, loser, everyone’s seen _Young Frankenstein_ here,” Adam tells him.

“I swear, Ronan’s been a bad influence on you,” Gansey answers, smiling. “You guys’ kid is going to be such a little asshole.”

Adam shakes his head, but doesn’t verbally deny it. “And you’ll love it, you’re as wrapped around her finger as you are around his.”

Even Gansey is surprised, though, by the degree of ‘not normal’ Seph ends up with for a first utterance. Delighted, but still surprised.

She’s in her high chair for breakfast one morning, and she throws her spoon on the floor. Ronan leans over to pick it up, and when he’s putting the spoon back on the tray, she meets his eyes and says, seriously, “Gladio et lancea.”

“Not at the table,” he replies automatically, then turns to shout, “Parrish, get your ass in here. _Adam!_ ”

No matter what Ronan says, though, she won’t repeat it. “You’re sure she wasn’t just babbling?” Adam asks. She’s been doing that a lot, lately, and it does tend to sound a lot like words.

“Fuck you, no,” Ronan says. “I’m telling you, she said it. ‘Gladio et lancea.’ Sword and spear. In Latin.”

Her second sentence isn’t until the next day, and then it’s just, “Storm.”

She says it about a minute before they can hear the thunder rumble, but given the season, it wouldn’t have been a bad guess even if she wasn’t psychic.

The thunder sounds and Adam drops his glass. It smashes to the floor. Seph shouts, delighted, “Fuck!”

It’s her third sentence. Blue wasn’t so far off after all.

…

In a way, it’s almost a relief that there’s something strange about Seph. They’d talked about it, once or twice—“Okay, but what was it like for Declan and Matthew, growing up with a father who was the Graywaren, and with you?”

“Matthew didn’t know.” Ronan didn’t seem particularly interested in discussing Declan’s experience, to Adam’s complete lack of surprise. “It didn’t seem to do Blue any harm,” Ronan went on, and wasn’t not exactly the same situation, but Adam could see how Ronan got there.

“Yeah, but Blue’s _Blue_ , it’s not like she’s ever been normal anyway.”

“And you think any kid of yours could be?” Ronan had asked, just a few months before, looking down into the cradle of a significantly smaller Seph than the one who would start speaking Latin in a few months.

“Well, you know, genetically—” Adam had blustered a little, suddenly caught it the psychological tongue-twister of trying to live in the place in the back of his mind where everything good about him is something he’s built for himself, not something he’s made of, while at the same time looking down at the flawless little being who’s made of half of the same raw materials as him.

“Genetics my ass,” Ronan had said. “If you hadn’t been who you are, you wouldn’t have gone to Cabeswater to begin with.”

Adam hadn’t been sure that was quite enough to settle the argument, but he hadn’t known how to counter it, either, so he’d let it drop.

It appears they didn’t need to worry, though. Once could be a fluke, but when she giggles and starts to clap seconds before Noah melts into view after dinner that night, it seems pretty certain.

Adam calls 300 Fox Way the next day, and when Calla says she’ll go fetch Blue, he stops her. “Actually, can I talk to you?”

She snorts. “You _can_ , Coca-Cola, but you’ll have to make it pretty quick, I’ve got dinner on the stove.”

“Right,” and all of the sudden, Adam’s not so sure Calla is the person he want to talk to about this. “Uh, actually, is Maura there?”

“Out,” Calla says. “Now come on, out with it. What’s the problem?”

“When did you know you were psychic?” Adam asks in a bit of a rush, just to get it out there.

Calla laughs. “About half-way through my first kiss, which was a bit of a problem, let me tell you. I must have been about fifteen. Sixteen? Somewhere in there.”

“And is that, uh, normal? The normal timing for that?”

“I’m not sure where ‘normal’ comes into it,” Calla says, and she sounds a little affronted, enough so that Adam is afraid he’s losing her.

“It’s just—” he rushes before she wanders back to the stove, “Blue told you we have a baby now? Me and Ronan? The snake,” he clarifies, not because he thinks she doesn't know, but because he knows that if he doesn’t, she’ll _pretend_ not to know until she’s had her fun.

Calla makes an agreeing noise. “The snake with a baby, hard to picture that. You should all stop by, prove you’re not making things up.”

“Yeah,” Adam says, “About that. We, uh, we actually think she might be psychic? We thought y’all might have some advice.”

There’s another pause, then Calla says, “ _Well_. That _is_ something. You’d better bring her over for lunch tomorrow. Unless, does it need to be sooner? Is she giving off sparks?”

“ _What_?” Adam squawks, not quite certain enough that he’s being messed with not to be spooked.

“Oh, nothing, nothing,” Calla says. “Nothing to worry about, just checking. Lunch tomorrow, then! Around one, I think. You can bring dessert.”

“Right,” Adam says.

“And now I _do_ have to get back to the stove, Coca-Cola Shirt,” Calla says, and then she hangs up.

…

They’re only about twenty minutes late for lunch, which, from Adam’s new life-with-a-baby point of view, is really pretty good. Unfortunately, he has a feeling Calla won’t agree, which isn't a great start.

Likewise not a great start is the fact that the Gray Man opens the door. Adam feels Ronan tense at his side, clutching Seph closer protectively, and they’re not even in the door yet. Promising.

The Gray Man takes in Ronan’s tension, but doesn’t mention it, which is like him. Adam thinks that even without Ronan’s history with him, the Gray Man would be unnerving.

Calla come up behind him, and all of the sudden, Adam’s mouth goes dry, because he hadn’t thought before about the thing he needs to say now, and maybe he should have. Still, there’s no use putting it off, so he meets her eyes and tells her, “Calla, I’d like you to meet Persephone.”

From the way her breath catches, he figures Blue hadn’t told her yet. From the way her expression hardens, he figures she’s not pleased. She says, “Well, I suppose it’s done now,” and it is, Seph is a _person_ , and her name has been her name for as long as that has been true, “But you had no right, she was not yours to give,” and Adam thinks he understands what she means by that, though Ronan looks mutinous.

Adam puts a hand on his arm, tells her, “I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking of it that way. I’m not sure it would have changed anything if I had, though.”

After a long moment, Calla nods. Adam stares her down, because he’s not sure if there’s a way he could ever really earn her respect, but he’s not about to give her another reason for her scorn. As he does it, he turns the idea over in his mind that maybe giving Persephone’s name wasn’t entirely a way of honoring her, that, even though he never meant it to be, maybe it’s a way of taking something from her memory, because now, when any of the people in their lives hear the name, she won’t always be the first person they think of anymore. Seph will.

 _Names have power,_ Ronan had told him, joking, when he’d first suggested it. It doesn’t feel like a joke now.

…

Ronan has reached the point where he doesn’t have a _problem_ with Mr. Gray, per se, or as much as it’s possible to not have a problem with someone who killed your father—he does get why Adam thinks he might, though, because there’s something in him that can never quite relax around the man.

The thing is, he’s not convinced that’s a bad reaction. Maybe he _shouldn’t_ be relaxed when he’s brought his less-than-one-year-old into the home of a highly competent hit man and a house full of basically-witches, a few of whom still look at him and at Adam with a certain amount of contempt they’ve held onto since their first impressions when they were both teenagers. The wariness he feels isn’t personal, though, or he wouldn’t be standing right beside the Gray Man on the outskirts of the party gathered in the back garden, talking about The Kinks.

Still, he can admit he’s a little relieved when he’s interrupted by little hands on his pant leg as Seph scoots across the grass, staining her clothes irrevocably, to sit on his foot. He looks down, and she grins up at him and stretches up her hands.

“Oh, do you want something?” Ronan asks her, smiling back. She bounces on his foot in response and puts her hands up again, insistent.

Orla, who’s the most recent in the long line of handed-along babysitters Seph has had since they arrived, says, “I couldn’t figure out what she wanted, and she was pretty insistent, then I think she just gave up on me and made a break for it.”

“Yeah, she does that,” Ronan says, and looks down at Seph. “Why don’t you ask your dad? You know he’s the nice one.”

In reply, Seph thwacks his shin again and holds her hands up for him. “She doesn't want to be picked up, I tried that,” Orla says.

“I know.” On the one hand Ronan can see why Orla would think that might be it. On the other, though, it’s so obvious to _him_ he can’t quite believe she can’t see it. He starts to reach down for Seph, then remember what he was doing before she came over and glances back at Mr. Gray, who smiles slightly and says, “Don’t let me keep you.”

Ronan isn’t sure whether that’s meant to be sarcastic, but he also doesn’t give a shit, so he leans over and takes Seph’s hands in his and pulls her up so she can stand. He looks over at Orla and says, “She hasn’t quite figured out the mechanics of walking yet, but she doesn’t let that stop her.”

He looks up to see where Seph’s leading him, which is, predictably, right over to the bench across the garden where Adam is sitting, talking to Maura and Blue, who’s somehow managed to arrive when Ronan wasn’t looking, though Ronan could have sworn he’s had his eye on all the exits. When they make it over, Seph impatiently lets go of Ronan’s hands and stands on her shaky little legs for just a moment before not quite toppling and catching herself against Adam’s knee.

Blue, who has been watching their progress from all the way across the garden, laughs, and Adam smiles, expression soft, and reaches down to pull Seph up into his lap. “Hey, can you say ‘hi’ to Blue and Maura?” he asks her. She hides her face against his shirt instead, though. Adam smooths his hand through her hair and looks up at Ronan, smiling warm and easy. “Hey. Can _you_ say hi to Blue and Maura?”

“Asshole,” Ronan grins back, then turns back to Blue and says, “Hey, c’mere, maggot,” before pulling her into a rough hug. Then he swings a leg around the bench so he’s straddling it, sitting behind where Adam is facing Maura and Blue. “Thank you for talking to us about this,” he tells Maura.

“You weren’t even _here_ for most of it,” Adam complains, leaning back into Ronan, who nips the shell of his ear and says, “I’m counting on you to give me the sparknotes edition.”

“Some things just don’t change,” Blue says, laughing. “Would it make any difference if I remind you guys that your _child_ is here watching you be all handsy and disgusting?”

Adam looks down to where Seph is now peeking up from the place where she’d been hiding against his shirt, an impish little smile on her face. He says, “She’ll have plenty of time to be embarrassed by us when she’s older.” Then he tells Ronan, “Maura says she wants to do a couple of little tests to make sure that’s actually what’s going on with her.”

“Tests?” Ronan can feel himself starting to bristle a little. He’s aware, somewhere in the back of his mind, that 300 Fox way does not have a basement filled with strange devices they’re planning to attach Seph to with wires—probably. It’s just not their style, and anyway, the images in his head are pretty heavily influenced by horror movies, not reality.

“Games,” Maura amends. “Guess the card, which hand behind my back has an apple in it, that kind of thing.” She looks down at Seph with a bemused smile on her face. “You said she’s only just started talking, though? It might have to wait a little while. She’s so _young_.”

She is, and Ronan feels gratitude well up in his chest at the way Maura knows it. He catches her eye and she’s smiling at him with understanding, and his first thought it, _of course. She’s a parent, too._ His second is of how strange it is to think of _himself_ like that, somehow even stranger than thinking it of Adam the way he does sometimes—the way these moments flash through his brain when he looks up and Adam has Seph balanced on his hip, or is humming his way through a diaper change: _my boyfriend is somebody’s dad_. But the strangest thing of all is that he’s even momentarily putting himself in the same category as Blue’s _mother_.

As Ronan is thinking, Adam says, “Well, we’re back in the area, we can come by again as she gets older, as long as it won’t be any bother.”

“No bother at all,” Maura says. “ _My_ daughter barely seems to have time to come by once a week for dinner,” and she reaches out to pinch Blue’s cheek. “There are times when I miss having a cute little girl around.”

…

They’re on a late-evening shopping run when they run into Adam’s mother at the grocery store. It’s not something he’s even thought to worry about, not because it’s across town from the store she usually shops at, or because it’s later in the day than he’d expect her to be shopping, but because he hasn’t thought of her at all, not in months, he doesn’t think.

He stops short in the aisle when he sees her, reaching up for a can on the top shelf. The cart Ronan is pushing beside him slows and comes to a stop beside him. Adam doesn’t look over at him, but he knows when Ronan catches sight of her because he murmurs, low and fervent, “Shit.”

Seph’s been in magpie-mode with language all week, she’ll pick up any word Adam or Ronan drops, and had spent half of the drive over chirruping “’lectoral college,” after Adam had made the mistake of having the news on the radio for a moment, so it’s no surprise that she takes a liking to that one, which is an old favorite, too, parroting, “Shit!” gleefully.

Adam’s mother turns in their direction at the sound. When she first turns, she looks a little amused, but then she sees Adam and her face goes quiet and blank. For a moment, Adam is sure she’s going to pretend she didn't see him and go on with her shopping. He isn’t sure if he hopes she will. Instead, though, she nods to herself a little, withdraws her reaching hand from the shelf, and turns towards him.

The sudden intensity of her focus feels like too much. Adam steps forward and reaches over her head to grab the soup can she’d reached for and the abandoned. He hands it to her. “Here.”

“I—thank you,” she says, a little halting, and then, “Adam. I’ve been thinking about you. I didn't know how to reach you.”

Ronan snorts, clearly unimpressed. Adam would bet money his hands are clenched along the handle of the cart tightly enough that his knuckles are white, that he’s trying so hard not to reach out for Adam it’s probably starting to hurt, a little, in the joints of his fingers. There are lines around his mothers eyes that weren’t there the last time he saw her, which makes sense, since it’s been around seven years.

“I’ve been out of town,” he says to her, then clears his throat a little. “For school.”

She nods. “College?” She doesn’t ask it like it’s a question so much as like it’s an invitation to tell her more. The fluorescent lighting overhead is buzzing, and since that last outburst, Seph has been suspiciously quiet.

Adam nods. “And law school, after that.”

“Oh.” Adam doesn’t know how he expected her to respond, and she doesn’t appear to know, either. She shakes herself a little, dislodges that terrifyingly steady gaze she’s had fixed on Adam’s face since she saw him to look over at Seph.

“And this—he’s yours?” She asks, tentative. Seph is dressed in a little black muscle shirt and green leggings, and her fine curls hang in a little cloud of flyaways somewhere between her ears and her shoulders. Adam guesses it’s not a strange assumption to make.

“She,” he corrects absently, looking away from his mother to Seph’s brightly interested little face, and the big hand Ronan has wrapped gently but firmly around her little, sock-covered left foot. “Yeah, she’s ours.”

Adam’s mother looks up at Ronan briefly, cautious expression drawing tight for a moment. “I remember you,” she says to him, then looks back over at Seph. “She looks so much like you did at that age.”

She reaches out, and in a moment that feels like it takes longer than it should, the kind of moment Cabeswater might give him as a hint that it’s time to make an important decision, Adam watches as his mother’s hand, a hand he can remember carefully holding a package of frozen peas to his face the first time he’s stayed home from school to hide the bruises, reaches towards his daughter, and he feels unease and wrongness build until he feels he’s choking on it.

A hand that has never actively hurt him reaches out to carefully, so tentatively, touch the end of one of Seph’s curls, and he gasps, “Stop.”

She looks at him, eyes wide and hurt and so much like his own, like Seph’s. “Adam?”

He takes her hand, pulls it away from Seph. Takes her stare and meets it with one of his own. “Are you still with him?” he asks. His tone is under control again, he thinks he sounds calm, as reasonable as he has in him.

She doesn’t answer, which is, he thinks, its own kind of answer. “I don't want you near my kid,” he says, in case that wasn’t totally clear.

“Adam,” she says, and Adam that thinks a part of him is breaking, here, knowing that he put that tone in her voice.

Then Ronan’s hand is on his back, steadying, and his voice is in Adam’s ear, but loud enough for his mother to hear, low and a little dangerous. “Hey. Do you want to take Seph out to the car while I finish up in here?”

“You hate shopping,” Adam hears himself say, inanely. He doesn’t look away from his mother’s quiet, betrayed eyes.

“I’ll be quick,” Ronan says, equally irrelevant, and the hand on Adam’s back tightens, for a moment, in the fabric of his shirt. Adam thinks Ronan wants to throw himself in the middle like this is a fight, wants to throw both his body and the violence of his temper between Adam and the thing that is wrong, here. Adam thinks he’s grateful both that it’s what Ronan wants and that he won't do it, not without Adam’s permission. Ronan knows a choice that has to be made without help when he sees one.

Adam looks away from his mother and over to Seph, who is reaching out for him, delicate little toddler’s features open and upset. She’s held by the spell of the tension of this moment for now, but it won’t last, and Adam suspects a meltdown isn't far off.

He reaches into the seat on the front of the cart, unbuckles the belt and pulls her out and onto his hip, bouncing her a little. The warm weight of her steadies him, a little, and he turns to Ronan. “No, let’s just head out now. We have enough.”

Adam isn’t sure, even after looking over at the cart, whether that’s true or not. Nor does he care. He turns to his mother and says, “Take care,” the same way his grandmother used to when he was young and tries not to feel like it’s the last time he’ll ever see her. He looks back over at Ronan and says, “Let’s go home,” and then he follows Ronan into the checkout line, still holding Seph’s abruptly sleepy body, bouncing a little on the balls of his feet to keep her slight, fretful noises from exploding into tears. He stands near Ronan shoulder while he pays—very close, even—and aggressively ignores the odd looks that gets from the woman behind the checkout counter and the other customers in line.

He trails after Ronan into the parking lot in the close, humid darkness, instead of trying to remember where they parked. He leans against the car and watches as Ronan puts the bags in the trunk, then stays in the back seat of the car, next to Seph’s car seat, after he buckles her in. He sees Ronan looking and says, “I just—”

“I get it, Parrish,” Ronan says with a rueful smile, which is good, because Adam doesn’t, quite, and isn’t sure what he would have said if Ronan hadn’t cut him off.

“Oh. Well, good.”

“I’m, uh. I’m proud of you.” The words stutter their way out in a strange, un-Ronan way, alien and dark and intense as any cavern they’ve ever flung their bodies into together. That he says it like he's not sure they're the right words even as he's saying them makes it better. They're not words that fit either of them, Adam or Ronan, quite right, so it's okay for them to fit here, for this one strange, impossible moment.

“Thanks,” Adam says. Then he proceeds to fall asleep to Ronan’s truly horrendous techno right alongside Seph, as Ronan drives a careful five miles per hour below the speed limit all the way back to the Barns. Before Adam drops off, he notices the way Ronan glances back at them, him and Seph, in the rearview mirror at every stop light.

[end]

**Author's Note:**

> I'm always up for chatting about these dudes, if you want to find me, I hang out on twitter as @psuedo_catalyst


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